Music

Let's Find a Banger

    Whenever I'm in need of inspiration, I listen to music. It helps me visualize a scene as the music plays in the background, and right now as I struggle with the script due to writer's block, I thought it would be very helpful to try to find music before filming rather than in the post-production phase. 

    I mainly wanted to focus on the music that Lluvia is going to listen to when she is trying on the clothes and pretending to model because she would most likely have to be on beat or maybe even lip-synching the song. I began looking for non-copyright songs and found this, which I felt was very model vibes and it got me thinking that maybe it should be house music. 

Modern Fashion Background Music For Videos

    However, that song isn't exactly what I'm looking for but it's getting closer, I just need to continue to look for similar songs but I continue to bump into songs that aren't what I want. Some are too slow, some too fast, and some simply are too cliche. A song that I'm thinking would work for this part is "CUFF IT' by Beyonce or "Boy's a liar" by PinkPantheress, obviously I can't use them because they're copyrighted, but that's the general vibe I'm searching for. Upbeat, fun, and with a nice beat.

    I didn't expect this to be such a hard part of the making, but I certainly need to keep my ears open for any non-copyrighted song that I could use for this part of the film opening. This is the most important part having it will have most of the credits, so I want it to be not just visually catchy, but also engaging through the music. Stay tuned for updates on the project!

Casting

The Big Audition

    I've now begun casting people for my film opening, so I made a list of potential friends that could play a part in it. The only character I'm having an issue with is the kid that Lluvia is going to be babysitting because Im not necessarily friends with five-year-olds. the names that are highlighted are the people who I think are best for the part and are willing to help me.

    Location scouting is also a big aspect of this project because I wanted the house where the film opening takes place to be big and luxurious, and my house doesn't necessarily match this vision. My best friend, Sofia, said she would most likely be able to let me film at her house, and since she is staying for spring break we can do it around that time. Another option for locations was my family friend's house, who isn't as close to me but is very close to my parents, so maybe they can talk them into letting us film at their house.

 

    I have yet to develop a script, meaning I am a bit behind schedule but I wanted to start making these casting decisions because the script will definitely be altered based on location and person. I want to make the writing very natural to whoever is playing the part of Lluvia, and each person has a very different personality therefore the script would have minor changes depending on who gets chosen. 

    I have a feeling that this upcoming week will most likely be a slow week in relation to the progress made because SAT day is coming up and time management isn't my strong suit, but that is a skill that this project is forcing me to exercise, and I'm hoping to learn from it. I'll keep you updated if any changes or innovations occur while I continue the project, stay tuned!

Advice from Peers

The Class Converses

    Today in class, our teacher created groups so that we could get advice from other people as well as some inspiration from others. At first, I wasn't sure how helpful this activity would be but this has been the most beneficial aspect of the entire planning and researching process so far. 

    We each showed each other our blogs and pitched our ideas to a randomized group from our class. This helped us because we got an unbiased opinion on our project and we were able to express any struggles that we may be going through with the project, and because a "secure" protocol was called in the middle of class, we had a ton of time to talk and work on our project in class.

New storyboard square for the suggestion given.

    As I mentioned in my last post, I had been struggling with how to convey the fact that the main character is a babysitter and that the parents aren't going to be home anytime soon. One of the members in my group suggested that maybe I have a shot of Lluvia looking outside and seeing no cars in the driveway. This idea was perfect! I'd be able to demonstrate how big the house is while also conveying that the character is babysitting. I also got advice for timing my film opening, and I was able to give advice to the other group members about their openings and where to get equipment from.

    I loved this activity and look forward to implementing the suggestions that I was given in my project!

Planning

Let's get Started

    My favorite part is here, Storyboarding! I love this part of any project because it's the part where I can decide on the composition of the shot and put my thoughts on paper. I've never been very good at expressing what I imagine with words, so storyboards are my strong suit and have been for a long time. Before I did my storyboard, I created a list of the sequential order in which things would be happening. There shouldn't be tons of dialogue but I should definitely get started on a script for my film.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:

• Lluvia reading a book to kid
• Book ends and kid goes to sleep (wholesome moment)
• Lluvia leaves the room 
• She goes to a couch or smth and starts playing music in her headphones
• she is shown exploring the house
• She micheviously walks into the master bedroom
• Turns on the light and walks in the closet
• Her eyes shine and she begins to grab clothes
• She has a moment modeling and dancing with the expensive clothes
• She is singing and danding and the parents walk into the closet as she is dancing
• She gets kicked out
• TITLE

    This is the first draft of my storyboard; I still think that I want to change a couple of shots to make them more fun and not as basic.

Example of shot with text messages

    In the shot where the main character, Lluvia, is texting the parents I was thinking sort of a shot like the one shown on the right. I have seen this in a lot of shows before but Im not sure if it's too basic or if I should include it anyways. I just need a way to express the fact that Lluvia is a babysitter and that she thinks the parents won't be home soon. 

    Soon I plan on scouting for locations as well as looking for actors. I've already thought of a couple of friends that might be able to work with me but it's not set yet. For the parents, I will most likely get my parents to do it because they are pretty good actors in my opinion. Stay tuned for the next post where I'll hopefully have my script started, and actors are chosen.

We have a Story

Change of Plans

    I know I sound like a crazy person switching what I want to do for my film opening day by day, but I actually have an excellent idea now. This time, it's nothing like anything I'd thought of before, but I think with my last thoughts I wanted to do something that was very profound and elaborate with a deeper meaning to everything; while those films tend to be extremely good, this weekend made me realize that sometimes the simplicity of life itself is what I enjoy, and what better way to convey that than through a coming of age film.

    This video I watched, The Evolution of Coming-of-Age & Teen Movies, demonstrates many different coming-of-age films that I looked at for inspiration.

Character

    I was thinking of creating a film opening about a teen girl who dreams of becoming a superstar, but in the meantime, she babysits her neighbor's kid and has taken on many part-time jobs. She is sweet and has a very trustworthy look to her, but when no one is watching she grasps this mischievous alter ego. She doesn't talk much, rather she demonstrates what she wants through her actions, and this will be a blessing and a curse throughout her story, where she will face lots of rejection before achieving success. 

Plot

    The rough outline for the plot would be this girl cannot seem to catch a break because she keeps on getting fired for stupid mistakes. She realizes that her dreams won't show up at her doorstep and that she has to work hard for them step by step, only problem is she doesn't know the steps so she kind of just skips all of them and takes a giant leap to Los Angeles to catch this dream herself not knowing that it's not as easy as it seems. She faces rejection throughout the film constantly, which is a theme I'd like to emphasize. In the end, she books a job, but instead of showing her process of rising to fame, I think I would show magazines and proof of her being a superstar. Obviously, none of this will actually be shown in the two-minute film opening, but I'm glad to know the journey that I want this character to go through so I can make a better development in the first two minutes.

Film Opening

Childhood picture of me modeling.

    Fun fact about me, I've been modeling and doing commercials since I was about two years old, so when growing up I loved to dress up, wear heels, and feel like the tiny superstar I was. The only thing about it is that I was embarrassed to model in front of my parents, crazy to think that I could model in front of a camera with professional studio lights pointing at me with no problem, but if I did a modeling show at home, the only audience that could watch were my stuffed animals. I would grab clothes from everyone's closet, and strut my pretend vouge outfits in front of a huge mirror we had, making sure nobody was there to see (and I still do it sometimes when my parents aren't home).

    So how does this tie back to my film opening? Well I remember whenever I would get caught I would be so embarrassed, so I was thinking I wanted to set the tone as well as introduce the character in the first two minutes, and a great way to do this would be to show her compassionate side caring for this kid when she is babysitting, but as soon as the kid falls asleep, her mischievous side is revealed and she sneaks into the rich parents' closet to try on clothes. After showing a montage of the wannabe superstar side of this character, she is caught in the act with both the parents walking into her awkwardly dancing wearing the mom's clothes. She is immediately fired and this first scene ends with her calling someone for help in finding a new job.

    I was looking into other films that could help me figure out how to show this and I think this opening scene from Booksmart (2019) is very close to the tone I'd like to set for my film. I especially liked the use of music, and lack of it as well, to make them awkward or look stupid, which I thought was very funny. I think I could definitely try including that element in my film.

Booksmart Movie Clip - Opening Scene (2019)

    Now that I finally have a very concrete idea, I can begin developing the shot list and storyboard and writing down locations to film, but I am extremely happy with this idea especially because it feels so close to home. I can't wait to continue to update you on this project, so stay in tune.

Scheduling

Time to get Busy

    Now that I've nearly finalized my brainstorming, I realize I might have skipped a crucial step in keeping me organized, which is creating a schedule. These eight weeks will not be easy because times are already so busy, two SATs are coming up, I have a 5 day competition right in the middle of the eight weeks, not to mention that the quarter ends and it's crazy how all the teachers collectively decide to cram in as much work as possible around that time. Enough with my ranting, it is what it is, and that is why it is so important to keep it together and have a plan going into all of this mess. 

    In the google drive that I made in hopes of keeping me organized, I created this list of due dates for each aspect of the project, leaving time for other things as well. 

02/20- Have story finalized and idea for film opening set.

2/23- develop (first draft of) script

2/25- develop (first draft of) storyboard

3/04- finalize storyboard and script

3/05-3/25- Production (filming and editing)

3/26-4/01- Creative Critical Reflection

    This schedule is bound to change based on schedules for the actors I might want to include, the estimated time it will take me to edit, and any other unexpected factors that might come along the way, but I'm glad to have at least a general idea of when things need to get done. I also want to get equipment from BEACON, the Broward Education Communications Network. I have used equipment from them in the past and due to my knowledge on the checking out process, I'll need to have filing days set so I can ask when the equipment is available. For now, planning and researching is my focus because that deadline is coming up very soon!

Brainstorming Pt 2

I Lost it!

    In my last post, I said that my idea was ready and that I wanted to do something in relation to eyes. I did a lot of research though and to be completely honest, I couldn't develop a plot from it. I had the vision of an extra close-up shot with a very detailed eye, kind of like the one from the 1960 film Psyco, and I figured out a rough outline of a story but it isn't really feasible since I was thinking something about space, it was too ambitious. 

Still from the movie Psyco (1960)

    After doing more research on the genre, I am really leaning toward the genre of thriller. I like the tone that these films create in their film openings and I really want to make a statement with mine. I don't necessarily want to have gore or anything of the sort, just something that leaves the audience thinking. I watched the film opening for "Get Out", one of my favorite horror thrillers, and I truly enjoyed how they developed the tone in that scene and it stayed the same throughout the entire film. The music was a big element in that opening shot because it was eerie, and it essentially was the main reason that the scene was scary (besides the kidnapping part), so I definitely will take music into consideration if I end up doing a thriller. 

    Now, I certainly want to continue the project having more realistic and feasible ideas because this is a no-budget film, I am a junior in high school, and my actors are limited to high school teens or maybe my little sister's friends. I have a couple of ideas in mind but I think after this weekend ill have to choose one where the plot can be further developed, ill keep you up to date with any innovations.

Brainstorming

I found it!

    It took me a while but I found it! I've been going back and forth on what I should make my opening about but all my ideas were just clashing and not making sense until yesterday.

    I was doing my makeup in the mirror before school the other day. Because I was a little late to school, the sun was starting to peak out of my window, and just as I was putting on mascara, the sun hit my eye in a way where I could see every single detail through the reflection of the round mirror. I might have gone blind for a second because the sun was in my eye for so long, but I was so mesmerized by the detail and dimension that my eye had. All day I couldn't stop thinking about my eyes, other people's eyes, just eyes in general and that's when it hit me... my film opening should be about eyes. 

    I realize it's a very broad subject and kind of weird that I just stared into people's eyes all day long but there is so much depth in a person's eyes. The common saying "eyes can tell a story" stood true because I felt like I could understand how people felt through the way their eyes looked. I began doing research immediately and found out that eyes have a lot more depth than I thought, and even though I don't have a set plot, and there are tons of routes I could take, I know this is one step closer to putting this brainstorming puzzle together. The next step is genre. 

    The genre of drama would be the more common approach for me since I've created some dramas in the past. A lot of the movies and series I watch fall under that genre as well, so I have a good understanding of the common techniques used in such films; however, I was thinking of experimenting with horror, thriller, or even mystery for this project. 

    I watched the following video to give me a sense of what the different genres have in common and give me some good examples from which I could get inspiration:

    Hopefully by the next time I update this blog, ill have a better understanding of what it is exactly I want to create and in what way I want to convey it, but I certainly want to focus on the researching and planning aspects to make my life easier later in the project.

The Final!

The Final Project

    Here it is, our final. One last test of the skills we've been practicing all year long, and it comes down to this moment. I know what you're thinking, it's only the beginning of February, how are you already doing with your final? Ok fine, maybe I exaggerated a little. In the next eight weeks, I'll be producing my Cambridge Portfolio project, a two-minute original film opening, and it will all be documented on this blog.

    I have been looking forward to this project for a long time, but now that it's here I'm a little intimidated. The most challenging part of any project for me is this, the start. We watched a Ted Talk by Andrew Stanton about creating stories and it was incredibly moving for me; the way that he has told so many of the stories I love as well as how he was able to tell his own story in the ted talk completely changed the way I wanted to approach this project, and I totally recommend more people watch it. I now know that for my film opening, I want to create something that I've experienced, I want the story to be authentic.

    If I'm being honest, that doesn't help me much in getting rid of this creativity block, there are so many genres and stories I could explore, but I do know what the next step in my process will be and that's research. I didn't understand how helpful research is until we worked on the Music Marketing project and now I truly think that by researching all the genres and figuring out who I want to be as I create this project will help me in the process. I'll be keeping you up to date with any innovations I may have about the project, so stay tuned for more!

Music Marketing Project

The Making of our Marketing Project

    The process of completing this project went fairly well. Our group kept in mind the lesson about the learning process at the beginning of the year, so we made sure to follow the process consisting of four p's and one r: research, planning, production, post-production, and presentation. 

Research

    Once we received the genre of music, we asked questions and researched it; the genre of "throwback" was not necessarily the easiest to understand however after some analysis of the songs we received we realized it meant songs that have a retro feel to them. Out of the three songs we received, we decided to choose "Tonight", an upbeat song with an 80's style to it, and our research of artists and music production companies began. This part of the process was somewhat hard and a bit of a tedious task, but we realized later on in the project how crucial it was and how much easier it made our life in both the production and post-production processes. Researching the genre was done, and so came a difficult yet very fun part, brainstorming.

Planning

    Brainstorming is an essential part of any project, but when working in a group of five, it may be difficult to get ideas across that everyone understands and come to compromises with everyone. After a lot of back and forth, we decided to do an artistic music video that somewhat represented the lyrics of the song we chose. In this part, we also decided that we would keep a common retro vibe throughout the video keeping the main theme of loneliness prevalent. When we reached this point in our process, we found it necessary to come up with a schedule in order to complete everything by the due dates and organize when everyone was available to film, a picture of the document we used for this segment is included.

 

    After completing these steps a storyboard began being created, and as we all pitched in ideas of what to include, one of us illustrated it. We did something similar for the media context worksheets as well; we all pitched ideas of artists that might fit the criteria that we needed to cover, and we split up the sections of the assignment. 

Production

   Then came time to film, one of the group's favorite parts. We had so much fun focusing on the shot compositions as well as the mise-en-scene elements and it was such an exciting part of this process for us. We tried to split up filming days evenly so we would do 3-4 scenes per day; this plan would have worked out if it hadn't been for a delay on the first filming day but once we got back on track, it came together pretty easily. We had already made a list of equipment and props that we would need previously, so when we started filming, decorating the shot environment and utilizing props was a pretty simple aspect. We had also set what colors and tones we wanted each scene to have beforehand in order to achieve the look we wanted in all the shots during the production.

Post-Production

    Editing is by far my favorite aspect of any project, so I was extremely excited to begin building this video. We had planned our schedule so that we could have 3 days to edit which worked out perfectly because I got to split my time up and not overwhelm myself with the editing. I probably still sat for 3-4 hours editing on the first day but that was just because I tend to lose track of time when I'm in the "editing zone" and I love it. 

    As I was editing, I would send drafts to my group and they would give an intake on what should be changed. We color-corrected every shot and added grain to all of the scenes set in the 80s or that had a retro vibe to them to add to the visual elements and stick to our brand; we also made a last-minute decision to change the aspect ratio of those shots. After many nested sequences and Adobe Premiere crashing a couple of times, our music video was done.

Presentation

  The making of our PowerPoint was simultaneously done as the music video. Once we had gotten to this part of our project, everything was very easy since we already had all the information we needed from the research and planning aspects of our project. When making the presentation, the only conflict we ran into was choosing what we wanted to do for a creative marketing idea but one of us had a genius idea to make the music video premiere like a drive-in movie theatre to stick with our retro brand.

Reflection

    Overall, I have a lot of major takeaways from this project, one of the main ones being that the learning process and having an organized schedule when doing a project is extremely beneficial to the final product. I also learned a lot about the music business as a whole and how music production companies use marketing and distribution techniques in order to cater to their audience, sometimes, without the audience even realizing it. This to me was extremely amusing because it was only after this project that I began to realize how all of the artists I listen to take part in these practices and by their use of branding techniques they were probably able to draw me in as well as many other fans. Music and video production have always been two things that spark my interest, so this project felt like it was made for me and I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it.